


The Good Guy (A Christmas Story)

by jadey36



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadey36/pseuds/jadey36
Summary: Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2018.





	The Good Guy (A Christmas Story)

Guy was livid. Once again the sheriff had undermined him, handing over a project that had been Guy’s baby to a jumped up nobody just because the man happened to have the ear of Prince John. Guy had toiled so hard on redesigning the furniture in the Great Hall, working every minute he could spare, sometimes long into the night. He was especially proud of the intricately tooled black leather that he had chosen to upholster the dining chairs. His replacement had suggested velvet would be more comfortable and cost less and the sheriff had told Guy he was off the project.

Well, Guy would have his revenge.

Christmas was coming, a time when the sheriff delighted in being at his nastiest, shouting at the guards, upsetting the kitchen staff and making the lives of the peasants in Nottingham and its surrounds as miserable as he could possibly make them. Even Guy was sometimes on the receiving end of this mean streak of the sheriff’s, though he bore it with good grace. Not this year, however. He would pay back the sheriff for taking away his furniture project by not only refusing to be nasty to the peasants, but also actually going out of his way to be nice to them. This year, he would be their Father Christmas. He wouldn’t let the sheriff know what he was up to; that would be far too risky. But _he_ would know and that’s what mattered. Just to see the sheriff’s enraged face when he realised the peasants were receiving treats and presents, purportedly coming from the coffers of the Sheriff of Nottingham, would be Christmas present enough for Guy.

He set to work the next day.

First off, he sought out someone who had a bunch of kittens they no longer wanted. Guy was just in time, for the grizzled old man had just filled a large barrel of water and was about to sling the kittens in. Guy gave him some coins and took the kittens back to Locksley. He wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible, nasty fluffy mewling things that they were. However, after spending a morning catching mice for them, which they didn’t eat, he found himself inexplicably drawn to them, a small ginger one in particular. They licked his leather trousers, rubbed between his legs, purred contentedly when he picked them up and gazed adoringly, or so it seemed to Guy, up at him with their shiny button eyes. Guy half-thought about keeping them, but then berated himself for being so soppy.

The next morning, shortly before dawn, he set off for Clun with the kittens bundled in a sack. He deposited each one, which he carefully placed inside a straw-lined box, on as many doorsteps as there were kittens. Tears welled as he set ginger down on the doorstep of the miller and it was several minutes before Guy was sufficiently composed to creep out from the shadows and head back to Locksley. All of the houses he’d left the kittens at contained children, so he felt sure they would be welcomed with open arms.

Mission accomplished Guy reached the castle in time for his morning duties, tired and yawning but content that he’d begun his campaign of getting back at the sheriff. For along with each kitten, he’d left a small handful of coins, not out of his own purse, but from the sheriff’s strong room. Hood would get the credit, of course, but being the honourable man that he was, Robin would doubtless admit that he wasn’t the one who’d performed the good deed. Nor would the Nightwatchman likely boast that it was his doing. Which meant the sheriff (the straw-filled boxes being marked as castle property) would get the blame. And oh, how the sheriff would hate that the peasants believed he’d done something nice for them.

This was just the beginning, however. There were only two more days until Christmas Day and Guy had more ideas on how to bring joy to the poor and downtrodden of Nottingham.

***

The butcher complained vehemently that he didn’t have the time to cut up fifty portions of meat. Guy’s sword changed his mind. An hour later, as dusk was falling, Guy set off with sacks of meat to deliver to the hungry of Nettlestone. One again, he left not only the meat offering, but also a handful of coin in each sack.

There was more work to do on Christmas Eve.  

Having heard of the tradition of ‘pulling crackers’ either before, after or during the midday Christmas meal, Guy had a quiet word with one of the more amenable guards about what these crackers were. Having pretended to scoff while the guard told him what they were and how they worked, Guy then raced to the depths of the castle, all the while scheming as to how he could make a whole load of these cracker things for the local villages, including Locksley.

He sought out the sheriff’s alchemist, paid the man with gold from the sheriff’s strong room to work all day, and by that evening Guy had the powder with which to make the cracker’s bang. After telling the sheriff that he had stomach troubles and was not hungry for supper, Guy locked himself in his room so he could make the crackers. Before doing so, he’d managed to steal the sheriff’s seal.

He worked methodically but swiftly; time was tight. He wanted to get this lot to the villages before nightfall so that the peasants would have them on Christmas morning. Guy was pleased with his efforts. All right, so they weren’t exactly colourful, all being clad in black leather courtesy of remnants from the local tailor, but each contained a few gold coins, a banger and, most importantly, an imprint of the sheriff’s seal on the outside, leaving the villagers in no doubt where they had come from.

Guy was worn out when he’d finished delivering his gifts, but nonetheless happy. 

On Christmas morning, he awoke before dawn and slipped out of the castle. He had three villages to visit – Clun, Nettlestone and Locksley – and he wanted to make sure that he got to all of them.

Hiding in the shadows, Guy watched as the peasants opened their doors to find an offering on their doorstep. After examining the item, whoever had opened the door called out to the rest of the family to come and see what the Sheriff of Nottingham had bestowed upon them this Christmas morn. Guy couldn’t help but feel a warm glow as he watched the grownups talking excitedly about the generosity of the sheriff and the children bouncing up and down with glee at having such a gift when usually they had little more than empty bellies. For many of them, their cup runneth over, for they’d already been given a kitten or fresh meat and many coins. Seeing their delighted faces, Guy now understood what Robin Hood got out of spreading good cheer and helping the poor. For a moment, he even wondered about whether he should continue with his do-gooding after Christmas, but then dismissed the idea. Apart from anything else, it was so time consuming.

The news soon spread about the sheriff’s gifts. When it reached the ears of Vaisey, he was ecstatic. He’d thought the gift-giver was either Robin Hood or the Nightwatchman, but that notion was quickly dispelled when several villagers confirmed that neither the outlaw nor the mask-wearing man had had anything to do with it. Vaisey’s suspicion fell on Guy and then fell off again. Guy was an imbecile, only good at following orders, certainly not using his initiative. Besides, he hated children, and kittens, and smiling happy peasants. No, it couldn’t be him. But whoever it was had done the sheriff a huge favour. In fact, they had done better than the sheriff could have done himself and had saved the sheriff the trouble of thinking up what pronouncement he could make on Christmas Day that would utterly devastate the poor and downtrodden. He could even stand to lose the few coins that he had for the satisfaction of the woes that had befallen Nottingham’s poor folk.

The kittens had fleas (Guy could attest to this, for he had scratched and itched himself – his legs and backside particularly – until he’d bled in places). Terrible fleas.

The meat portions were rancid, resulting in sickness, loosening of bowels, headaches and fever (thankfully, Guy couldn’t attest to this having not eaten it).

The crackers had resulted in seven cottages being burned to the ground, five being badly damaged by fire and several villagers suffering everything from mild to severe burns.

The fleas were not Guy’s fault; he didn’t know anything about animals and their ailments. The butcher had given Guy meat that was weeks old that he’d brushed with beetroot juice to look fresh. The sheriff’s alchemist obviously bore a grudge and had told Guy the wrong proportion of powder to put in each cracker to make it bang. The resulting explosion was equivalent to a thimbleful of Greek fire.

In short, Guy’s wish to spread happiness and joy and rub the sheriff’s nose in it had failed spectacularly. As the sheriff chortled and skipped around the Great Hall, Guy sat in his room, his head in his hands, feeling as miserable as could be. He avoided Christmas dinner with the sheriff saying his stomach was still troubling him. When, nonetheless, a serving boy delivered a plate of roast goose to his room, Guy wept.

As dusk fell on a perfectly horrible Christmas Day for the poor folk of Nottingham and a perfectly wonderful Christmas Day for the Sheriff of Nottingham, someone knocked on Guy’s door. It was Marian. She couldn’t stay for it was late and she was tired, but she had heard that Guy was feeling unwell and wished to bring him a present. She’d also heard about the flea-ridden kittens, the rancid meat and the deadly crackers and had been helping the villagers all day. She had not had time to go shopping, but one of the villagers, the miller of Clun in fact, had given her a kitten (washed clean of its fleas) as a way of saying thank you for coming to their aid (much of the mill had been burned down during the midday feast, though, mercifully, no one had been injured). Marian preferred horses to kittens and wondered if Guy would like it. He was free to say no, she told him.

She flipped back a piece of sacking covering the wicker basket she had with her and out popped the tiny head of the ginger kitten.

‘I know it’s not—’ Marian began to say.

Guy leapt to his feet and snatched ginger out of the basket. The kitten looked up at him with adoring button eyes and purred.

‘It’s perfect, Marian,’ Guy said. ‘Utterly perfect.’

He stroked its little head, tickled it beneath its chin.

‘As perfect as you are,’ Guy said, raising his head to look at Marian. Marian, however, had gone.

Oh well, Guy thought. He’d had an awful day and once more he’d failed to express his true feelings to Marian, but he had Ginger and Ginger clearly loved him.

‘Happy Christmas, me,’ Guy whispered, cradling the kitten in his arms.

As for the sheriff, well, New Year’s Eve wasn’t long off, and Guy still had some of the alchemist’s powder in his room.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2018.


End file.
